Ms. Bergman should know all about kissing. Her on-screen smooch with Cary Grant in Notorious (1946) is one of the most celebrated in film history. In Casablanca (1942), she proved with Humphrey Bogart that a kiss was more than just a kiss.

Today is Kiss Your Mate Day. A lovely opportunity to pucker up and smack.

The Puritans, who didn't think much of love, described kissing on the lips as "disgusting" because it attracted "germs like fly-paper attracts flies."

John Bunyan in The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) wrote that kisses were, "the common salutations of women I abhor. It is odious to me whomsoever I see it."

Poor guy.

In 1901, Anna Hatfield, the President of the Union of Christian Women for Temperance, launched a national campaign to ban kissing on the lips, calling it a "barbaric and unhealthy" practice. She highly recommended disinfectant mouth wash after a kiss.

Artist Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) knew better. He created the passionate sculpture of a man and woman's embrace, The Kiss (1887), a classic that still provoked censorship because of its nudity. Russian painter Marc Chagall (1887-1085) painted Lovers in Blue (1914) and Birthday (1923), both featured lips sensually coming together to exchange breaths.

Kissing is pleasant and satisfies a need within, as natural as hunger for food or knowledge. Kissing is the perfect way to experience the pinnacle of pleasure. Or, as romance expert Cyrano de Bergerac put it, "A kiss is a rosy dot over the 'i' of loving."

Pucker up!